[comp.mail.misc] foo .bar.com

edb@fai.UUCP (Edward Bunch) (09/30/88)

 I am having a mail routing problem with pathalias. A site that will remain
nameless puts:

nameless	.somedomain.foo(LOCAL)

in their pathalias entry.
For my local users I have a better way of getting through to .somedomain.foo.
So I add the line:

fai	.somedomain.foo

in my pathalias.
This works for other domains I serve.
When pathalias builds its files I end up routing through nameless.
I thought of adding my own:

fai	.somedomain.foo(LOCAL)

but my sendmail.cf expects ".somedomain.foo" to be a machine name in L.sys.

QUESTIONS:
1. Is this syntax legal?
2. Must I really hack sendmail.cf to understand "."'s in a name really aren't
   uucp machine names? 

-- 
Edward A. Bunch                       UUCP: {uunet,amdahl,sun}!fai!edb
Fujitsu America, Inc.                 DOMAIN: edb@fai.com
Computer Support and Administation.

aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri) (10/02/88)

There are several lines of my pathalias output that I know better
(geographically, at least) paths for, and after attempting various
more "elegant" methods, I just have my pathalias script that runs nightly
pipe the output through sed, replacing the desired lines.  Ugly, but
it works.

Now I just have to figure out how to make sendmail send foo!bar to
smail instead of uux, when we don't talk to foo.  Works fine for bar@foo,
though.




-- 
@disclaimer(Any concepts or opinions above are entirely mine, not those of my
	    employer, my GIGI, or my 11/34)
beak is								  beak is not
Anthony A. Datri,SysAdmin,StepstoneCorporation,stpstn!aad

wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes) (10/07/88)

In article <2164@stpstn.UUCP>, aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri) writes:
> There are several lines of my pathalias output that I know better
> (geographically, at least) paths for, and after attempting various
> more "elegant" methods, I just have my pathalias script that runs nightly
> pipe the output through sed, replacing the desired lines.  Ugly, but
> it works.

Another, perhaps slightly more elegant :-) way to do this is to have the
sed script lower the cost on the links you want to use to some
(ridiculously) low value.  Obie, myth, and wsccs all use this to force
certain paths that sp7040 allows us to use, but does not broadcast to
the net.at.large :-).

Nightly pathalias runs, huh?  Must be nice having a machine with lots of
processor time and i/o bandwidth and such.  I haven't managed to get
pathalias to run on obie yet, and it takes quite a while to run on wsccs
(on the order of 20 minutes for pathalias | pathproc :-).
-- 
                     {hpda, uwmcsd1}!sp7040!obie!wes

         "How do you make the boat go when there's no wind?"
                                 -- Me --

dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) (10/18/88)

From article <211@obie.UUCP>, by wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes):
> In article <2164@stpstn.UUCP>, aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri) writes:
>> There are several lines of my pathalias output that I know better
>> (geographically, at least) paths for, and after attempting various
>> more "elegant" methods, I just have my pathalias script that runs nightly
>> pipe the output through sed, replacing the desired lines.  Ugly, but
>> it works.
> 
> Another, perhaps slightly more elegant :-) way to do this is to have the
> sed script lower the cost on the links you want to use to some
> (ridiculously) low value.  Obie, myth, and wsccs all use this to force
> certain paths that sp7040 allows us to use, but does not broadcast to
> the net.at.large :-).

Yet another (IMHO "elegant") solution is to take advantage of the fact that
pathalias utilises data IN THE ORDER IT FINDS IT with respect to multiple
entries. So, for example, if there was a link between my machine at home
(pallio) and system blurf on the west coast (lakart & pallio are in Boston)
that I want to be able to use from lakart and pallio, but I dont want anyone
else to know about I do the following: create a u.PALLIO file with the
following two lines:

pallio	blurf(HOURLY)
blurf	pallio(HOURLY)

Now when I run pathalias (every night :-) ) I invoke it as follows:

pathalias u.[A-Z]* [ud].*

which causes the u.PALLIO (and u.LAKART - we have one) information to be
read first, hence it takes precedence over real information. I think this may
well do what you want.
-- 
	dg@lakart.UUCP - David Goodenough		+---+
							| +-+-+
	....... !harvard!xait!lakart!dg			+-+-+ |
AKA:	dg%lakart.uucp@harvard.harvard.edu	  	  +---+

john@jetson.UPMA.MD.US (John Owens) (10/20/88)

In article <292@lakart.UUCP>, dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) writes:
> Yet another (IMHO "elegant") solution is to take advantage of the fact that
> pathalias utilises data IN THE ORDER IT FINDS IT with respect to multiple

Actually, pathalias uses the lowest cost it encounters as the cost of
the link.  That's why you can't increase the cost of a link just by
saying "foo bar(DEAD)", and why the "dead {foo!bar}" syntax was
introduced.  To demonstrate:

% cat one
# public
foo	bar(5000)
foo	other(1000)
other	bar(1000)
# private
foo	bar(100)

% cat one | pathalias -l foo
foo	%s
bar	bar!%s
other	other!%s
% cat two
# private
foo	bar(100)
# public
foo	bar(5000)
foo	other(1000)
other	bar(1000)

% cat two | pathalias -l foo
foo	%s
other	other!%s
bar	bar!%s
% 

It doesn't matter in which order pathalias sees the "foo bar(5000)"
line; it will always use the "foo bar(100)" line.

Regardless, I agree that it is an elegant and good idea to have a
local input file to pathalias that contains reduced costs that aren't
published publically.  I've used that technique on every system I've
run pathalias on.  I just want to make sure that no one tries to use
the technique to attempt to _increase_ locally the cost of a published
link.

Happy pathaliasing,
	-John

-- 
John Owens		john@jetson.UPMA.MD.US		uunet!jetson!john
+1 301 249 6000		john%jetson.uucp@uunet.uu.net

honey@umix.cc.umich.edu (Peter Honeyman) (10/22/88)

i found this on a man page somewhere ...

  If a link is encountered more than once, the least-cost occurrence
  dictates the cost and network character.

to increase a cost, run your local map last, and say

delete {foo!bar}
foo bar(DAILY)

if your version of pathalias flags this as a syntax error, drop me a
line and i'll send you fresh code.

	peter

dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) (10/23/88)

In article <163@jetson.UPMA.MD.US>, john@jetson.UPMA.MD.US (John Owens) sez:
> In article <292@lakart.UUCP>, I say:
>> Yet another (IMHO "elegant") solution is to take advantage of the fact that
>> pathalias utilises data IN THE ORDER IT FINDS IT with respect to multiple
> 
> Actually, pathalias uses the lowest cost it encounters as the cost of
> the link.  That's why you can't increase the cost of a link just by
> saying "foo bar(DEAD)", and why the "dead {foo!bar}" syntax was
> introduced.  .....
 
I STAND CORRECTED AND APOLOGIZE FOR ANY CONFUSION I HAVE CAUSED. I had
forgotten that all the stuff in our local u.LAKART file relates to reducing
path costs.

> Regardless, I agree that it is an elegant and good idea to have a
> local input file to pathalias that contains reduced costs that aren't
> published publically.

So at least I scored 1 out of 10 for trying :-(
-- 
	dg@lakart.UUCP - David Goodenough		+---+
							| +-+-+
	....... !harvard!xait!lakart!dg			+-+-+ |
AKA:	dg%lakart.uucp@harvard.harvard.edu	  	  +---+

jim@eda.com (Jim Budler) (10/27/88)

In article <292@lakart.UUCP> dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) writes:
>From article <211@obie.UUCP>, by wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes):
>> In article <2164@stpstn.UUCP>, aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri) writes:
>>> There are several lines of my pathalias output that I know better
>>> (geographically, at least) paths for, and after attempting various
>>> more "elegant" methods, I just have my pathalias script that runs nightly
>>> pipe the output through sed, replacing the desired lines.  Ugly, but
>>> it works.
>> 
>> Another, perhaps slightly more elegant :-) way to do this is to have the
>> sed script lower the cost on the links you want to use to some
>> (ridiculously) low value.  Obie, myth, and wsccs all use this to force
>> certain paths that sp7040 allows us to use, but does not broadcast to
>> the net.at.large :-).

[other suggestions omitted]

When I was wandering through the archive list 'GNU.how-to-get' (approx.
title, it is from memory) describing how to annon. UUCP from osu-cis
I found, in addition to pathalias9, the 'release' version, an entry
for 'a newer, but unreleased' pathalias. Being a curious chipmunk, I grabbed
it. Two new features were 'adjust' and 'delete'.

I have a Path.fixes in addition to Path.local, which I use as follows
for smail 2.5:

	pathalias -c Path.local [du].* Path.fixes | ...

In this file I have:

delete {amd,ixpierre}

Guess what that does?

I know amd doesn't exist anymore, but lingers in the maps, and ixpierre
was announced gone in news.config.

I don't use it, but

adjust {site1, site2(LOW), site3(-1)}

where site1 would be given the default 4000, is also in the manual.
this also seems appropriate for Path.fixes.

This feature is *great*, and I wonder when it will be 'released', and
I hope nobody is upset at me letting the cat out of the bag.

This version does appear to use a different algorithm. The resulting
paths file is different in that the resulting paths are shorter. I
tested it a month ago, and reran the test just now (not using Path.fixes).
Same results. I like the shorter paths, and *love* the features I put in
my Path.fixes file.

Before I get extra flames:

	1) I DO NOT actively reroute.
	2) I talk to only decwrl and uunet, why would ANYONE route things
	*through* my site?
	3) Our own mail volume is low, and the returns after a month have
	been extremely low (usually due to site!@site2:joe@site3 type return
	paths, where do they come from?)

Cheers.


-- 
uucp:     {decwrl,uunet}!eda!jim        Jim Budler
internet: jim@eda.com                   EDA Systems, Inc.